A writing experiment I did across 2014-2016 was Walking Through Walls, an ongoing fantasy noir serial that ran in Utah Geek Magazine. My tale ran for the first 13 issues and came out to just about 30K words. Not too long, not too short.I was sitting on it for awhile but with the relative success of BRUTAL and my pen name of James Alderdice, I decided I might as well release Walking Through Walls too just to build up a backlist for the fantasy based pen name.
It is set in the same secondary world as BRUTAL but is centrally based in Tolburn, the biggest dirtiest city in that world, whereas BRUTAL is taking place in a dirty backwater far removed from the rest of the goings on. There are no character crossovers or mentions yet, maybe just some very simple geographic references - And I don't even have an official map made up yet.
In my mind it is a prequel of sorts to something I have been working on for ages and brainstorming that I'm calling GODS & ROBBERS.
I looked at the project as a writing exercise since I had to come up with a quick tale of around 2,000 to 2,500 words an issue and hook the reader each time, have a wrap-up but also a cliffhanger for the next chapter. It was fun but perhaps lacks the flow of a novel. Most of it is first person featuring a character named Kenaz, who is no secret prince, no chosen one waiting to be called forth, no great fighter, no man of means or anything special, but he can travel outside his body and gather information. So that's his semi-criminal profession, but then he gets wrapped up in a job for multiple employers that all conflict with one another and that's where he gets smacked with a fistful of trouble.
Toward the end though I really wanted some scenes with a side character so the narrative drifts from first person to third and back again. Probably not the best format and definitely something I won't do for the continuation of the Gods & Robbers saga.
I've been having it available at 2.99 but think I'll do a promotion to .99 for Walking Through Walls by the weekend just to give it a little more traction. So if any of you feel like checking it out, that'd be great. And as always reviews are forever appreciated.
